Idaho’s oldest and tallest sequoia moved over the weekend. While the evergreen only went a short distance, the process of moving an 800,000 pound tree is no small feat.

Late Saturday night, two huge excavators make that familiar beep as they slowly back up, pulling the big tree out of its spot by St. Luke’s Hospital. With Fort Street shut down, a crowd assembles to watch the hundred-foot-tall tree make its journey of about 1,200 feet down the road.

When you think of Giant Sequoia trees, you may think California before you think Boise. But Idaho’s largest Giant Sequoia, with its complicated history, is about to be moved from behind St. Luke’s Hospital downtown.

The 98-foot-tall tree is more than 20 feet around. The tree began life as a tiny cutting given to Dr. Fred Pittenger and planted next to his house around 1912.

It grew, and grew, as St. Luke’s and the city grew too. But it almost perished in the 1980s, smothered by the holiday spirit of the community.

Boise is known as the City of Trees, and one man had a lot to do with that title. Walter Pierce planted 7,000 trees in Boise. One of the neighborhoods he built, and some of his trees, will be part of a tour this weekend.

Walter Pierce was a land locator and surveyor in the late 1800s. When he started a business in Boise in 1890 he platted several Boise neighborhoods, including Elm Grove Park west of Harrison Boulevard in the North End.

Managers of the Boise National Forest say one small section of their jurisdiction is in crisis. But that small section is the Bogus Basin Resort, which means addressing this crisis is urgent and difficult.

Ryan Rodgers is with the city's community forestry department, and says there are many benefits to growing more trees in Boise. Rodgers says that's why the city is providing two free programs for people who want more shade by their homes.

Rodgers says residents in the Vista Neighborhood might have received a postcard about donated trees from Idaho Power. The company is encouraging planting for heat reduction in the summer, and the city is helping get the word out.

Boise has an estimated 180,000 trees and Boise Parks and Recreation is responsible for about 45,000 of them. The city is updating a 10-year management plan for its trees, led by forester Brian Jorgenson.

Right now, the tree canopy covers 16 percent of the city. Jorgenson — who calls himself the "tree guy" and remembers almost every tree he's planted in his three decades of working for the city — wants to increase that to 25 percent.

"I think trees are just one of those things, along with clean air and clean water, we take for granted," says Jorgenson.